Animal Owners

Antibiotic resistance is a major threat to animal and human health. It is essential that we all handle antibiotics with care to preserve their effectiveness.  

RCVS Knowledge runs a national audit using an online Antibiotic Auditing Tool (the Tool). Veterinary teams and animal owners input data into the Tool. These data enable your veterinary practice to review and evaluate whether their antibiotic prescribing behaviour is in line with recommended practice, and how it impacts you and your animal, to ensure that antibiotics are used as much as necessary, and as little as possible.

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If your animal has a veterinary consultation, your veterinary practice may ask if you want to be involved with the audit. Once you have agreed to take part, you will receive an email asking you to register and fill in a short questionnaire about your animal.

When your animal has their consultation, your veterinary practice will submit information on any medications prescribed. Following the consultation, you will receive an email asking you how your animal is getting on. This is an opportunity to share with your vet how you and your animal have found the treatment plan. You may also be sent additional questionnaires a few weeks after your consultation or after any follow-up consultations to see how your animal is doing in the longer term.

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We need to make sure that antibiotics are used appropriately to ensure they remain effective to treat the animals and people that need them. Your veterinary practice is supportive of this mission which will have a positive impact on both human and animal health. Your questionnaire responses will support your vet to review the effects of their prescribing decisions. By taking part your vet will be able to see how your animal is doing after the consultation.

As well as helping to support your own vet, your participation will contribute towards the wider efforts from the veterinary community to tackle antibiotic resistance and ensure that antibiotics remain working for maintaining animal health and welfare.

If you have any concerns about how your animal is doing, you should still contact your own vet directly.

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It is free to use for both owners and veterinary teams.

RCVS Knowledge are dedicated to advancing the quality of veterinary care for the benefit of animals, the public, and society. They are the charity partner of the RCVS (Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons). 

The online Antibiotic Audit tool is managed on a day-to-day basis by Amplitude Clinical Outcomes, a global leader in online health outcomes software.

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You do not need to take part, but we hope we have shown how your participation will help you to support your vet and the veterinary community in their fight against antibiotic resistance.

If you would like to participate, we need your consent. Your decision to take part, or not, will not affect the treatment your animal receives in any way. You are free to withdraw your consent from the audit at any time, without any detriment to the care of your animal(s) either now or in the future. Once you withdraw your consent only anonymised data will remain.

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If you wish to participate in the audit, your vet or another member of the practice team will enrol you through your email address. You will receive an email which contains a link that takes you to the registration process, where you will provide your explicit consent electronically.

Alternatively, if your vet is participating in the audit, you can register directly at RCVS Knowledge Outcomes.

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With your consent, we collect the following personal information and process it securely under Article 6 of the General Data Protection Regulations and UK Data Protection Act 2018.

• Your email address
• Your name
• Personal security information, in the form of a question to secure your account.

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RCVS Knowledge can access your data to administer the audit and provide feedback to your veterinary surgeon. Amplitude can access your data to administer the audit. No other organisation will be able to access your identifiable personal information apart from your veterinary practice team members. The joint data controllers are RCVS Knowledge and your veterinary practice. The data processor is Amplitude Clinical Outcomes, our IT partner.

To view the levels of data security on the platform visit https://amplitude-clinical.com/information-governance-information/

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We will use personal data solely to contact you to review the progress of your animal. The veterinary practice will use the data collected from questionnaires to analyse outcomes of treatment plans for animals that have had a consultation. This additional information will support them in reviewing antibiotic prescribing outcomes. Submitted animal data will be anonymised to ensure you as an individual cannot be identified by third parties. Your veterinary practice team will have access to the data about your animal to evaluate the treatments they perform and assess clinical progress.

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Your personal data will be stored for the length of time you wish to remain part of the audit. At your request, your personal data can be removed from the audit at any time. However, to ensure consistency in our results, we will keep all anonymised animal-related data indefinitely. 

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It would be great to hear from you about your animal for the length of the recovery following the consultation. The more information your veterinary practice gets, the better conclusions they can make from it in terms of antibiotic use. Veterinary team members do not usually have access to detailed information on patient outcomes. These detailed data from the owner-reported features of the audit will support veterinary teams and offer the opportunity to reflect on case outcomes in line with antibiotic prescribing behaviour.  Anonymized combined data will give us a national picture of which prescribing behaviours have the best outcomes.

If you no longer wish to complete questionnaires, you no longer own the animal, or sadly your animal passes away, please let us know, and we will stop contacting you. You can also do this directly from any follow-up emails we send you.

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You can withdraw consent at any time without explanation. Results up to the period of withdrawal will be used in an anonymised format.

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More information is available here.

Read RCVS Knowledge’s Privacy Policy.

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If you have any questions regarding the platform itself, including login and password details, your profile on the platform and any other technical questions, please contact Amplitude Clinical Outcomes:

[email protected] / 0333 014 6363 available Monday – Friday 9am – 5pm excluding Bank Holidays.

If you have any questions related to this audit, please contact:

[email protected]

We endeavour to respond to all queries within five working days.

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